Is SEO PR?

I have been wondering a lot lately if Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is part of Public Relations? Or at least where does it fit within the marketing mix?

On the whole, there seems to be confusion where SEO sits with conventional PR, with many people seeing it more as a web team function than a PR one.

Good SEO is essentially online PR, content creation and optimisation. However, all too often we have a situation where PR people lack the necessary SEO skills and time to acquire them – so let the web team get on with it. Whilst the web team may have the technical knowledge of SEO, HTML and web design, they can lack PR nous.

We need to remember that the fundamental part of PR is protecting an organisation’s reputation and with internet usage at around 1.5 billion, enhancing online reputation is crucial. SEO can play a major part in that.

I’m firmly in the camp that believe SEO is part of PR or at least should be. In the current climate where agencies are looking for additional income streams, this is one we can legitimately claim for ourselves. However, it is up to us PR professionals to increase our SEO knowledge in order for this to become reality.

Whilst, web designers may be able to build wonderful, engaging websites with Flash et al, we need to remember they should be built in conjunction with the PR guys, or at least the SEO experts, which I believe increasingly will/should be PR guys.

After all if you don’t exist in the first three pages on Google, you may as well not exist at all.